This article investigates the connection between the apparently uncorrelated issues of tax evasion and privatisation in a political economy framework. We first consider how the political process - given a country's level of development and income distribution - will affect the efficiency of the...

This paper addresses the often neglected question of how macroeconomic risk is shared across and within economies, and identifies reforms that could contribute towards achieving more desirable risksharing outcomes. For risk-sharing across countries, the paper discusses possibilities for...

The paper explores interrelations between the fiscal situation of sub-national and central governments, or – put differently – whether and how sub-national and central governments contribute to each other's fiscal difficulties. The first part of the paper examines sub-national government...

This paper addresses the question of whether and how monetary policy ease may lead to excesses in financial and real asset markets and ultimately result in financial dislocation. It presents evidence suggesting that periods when short-term interest rates have been persistently and significantly...

The increase in market access that the expansion of the road network and the growth of Europe created between 1990 and 2012 raised GDP, employment and attracted population. An increase in market access by 1% increases GDP in a region, on average, by 0.2%, employment by 0.7% and population by...

This paper advances our understanding of the spatial dimension of productivity by investigating the link between subnational governance arrangements and urban labour productivity. It presents a detailed study of the direct and indirect effects of decentralisation (local autonomy), government...

The paper introduces a novel, granular house-price dataset sourced from a network of public and private data providers. It offers the first results of investigations into changes in the urban geography of housing markets following the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid rise of working from home...

A noted European economist argues that the Russian economy and its post-2000 growth have been heavily dependent on natural resources, especially hydrocarbons, and are bound to remain so for some time to come. Given that many economists have come to view rich natural resource endowments as a...

This paper examines the development of Russian industry in comparison with that of Ukrainian industry during 1995–2004 in an effort to ascertain to what extent, if any, Russian manufacturing showed signs of succumbing to ‘Dutch disease’. Ukraine and Russia began the market transition with...